1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for processing program information that is capable of efficiently displaying the program information to an audience.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, program and image information have been broadcast and transmitted through a large number of channels because of the spread and progress of satellite broadcasting, satellite communication and so on. In the case of sending information relating to such a program or the like, that is, for example a program guide, to an audience, because of the large number of channels, of course, the number of frames of a program table also becomes large. There are various proposals for easily and efficiently sending or displaying this program table to the audience in an understandable form. As such prior art, for instance, there is a program information processor (display device) shown in Japanese Patent Laid Open No. 83888/1997. This program information processor includes a first memory means for storing program information, a second memory means for storing designation information for a program retrieval input by an audience, retrieving means for retrieving a program from the program information on the basis of designation information, program construction control means for constructing a program table based on the retrieval result and displaying it, and program selection means by which the audience selects a program from the program table. When the audience inputs designation information, a program meeting the condition(s) of the designation information is retrieved from the large quantities of program information that make up the program table. Designation information called for in this prior art includes, for instance, the present time, the established charge information and information about a viewed program. For in instance, when the present time is input as designation information, a program capable of being broadcast at present is retrieved. As another instance, when information of the viewed program is input as designation information, a program which has not been retrieved is retrieved. Of course, plural items of designation information can be input in one operation. As program table, can be made as a result of the retrieval, is suitably one in which various channels are arranged along the vertical axis and time slots are shown along the horizontal axis. As a matter of course, the relationship between the vertical and horizontal axes may be reversed. It is also possible that the time slots are arranged along the vertical axis and the various channels are shown along the horizontal axis in much the same manner as a program table that is presently carried in a general newspaper.
However, in such a prior art program information processor, because a program based on the conditions of designating information is retrieved by inputting various pieces of designating information, and a program is focussed oil in accordance with the taste or demand of the audience, there is the advantage that the audience finds it easy to select a program. However the program table assembled by this program information processor is merely a two-dimensional display in which the two attributes of channel and time slot are used as the two axes of the table, vis: the vertical axis and the horizontal axis as described above. This table can be assembled by deleting or culling programs that are not desired to be selected, from a program table that has been in general use up until now. Because of this, and because the number of channels is about to become 100 or more, because of increase in recent satellite broadcasting, if a program table is created as above, the two-dimensionally displayed program table itself occupies an extremely large area and the audience cannot look everywhere when searching for a program or cannot spend the huge amount of time needed for searching the current program. Furthermore, if whole program table is displayed even though a program only in a specific time zone is to be searched, there is the defect that it is hard to search the desired program because program columns of other time zones catch the sarcher's eye.